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Daiber has been judging fair projects for several years. His primary concern is making sure the students learned a lot while working on their project, and can clearly explain how to build their pieces again.

"Not necessarily how good it looks, but that they did the work," Daiber said. "Some are pretty decent craftsmen, and others are novices. I'm just tickled they're here and they took time to do the project."

Daiber gave another blue ribbon to Thomas Weithman, a junior FFA member at Wynford High School. The judge was impressed with the flair the young welder added to what could have been just a standard, small table.

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Thomas Weithman, a junior at Wynford High School, shows his FFA welding project to judge Tom Daiber on Saturday at the Crawford County Fair.(Photo: Zach Tuggle/Telegraph-Forum)

"This way you can plug stuff in next to your bed," Weithman explained.

Like Scott, Weithman worked on his project 40 minutes each day of the entire final nine weeks of the school year. Some days he worked a little faster than others.

"I was procrastinating," he admitted. "I sped up a lot toward the end."

In the building next door, more than 100 students spent most of the day Saturday telling judges about their family and consumer science projects. At least 50 of those children will advance to the Ohio State Fair, said Allison Cooper, Crawford County's extension educator for 4-H youth development.

"There are a lot of state fair qualifiers," Cooper said. "All of the projects can send at least one kid to the state fair, if not more."

The more popular projects this year were veterinarian studies and cake decorating, but Cooper said the popularity of various projects changes each year. Some of the children were still hoping to qualify for the state fair in the speech and demonstration contests, slated to begin 10 a.m. Monday.